Crow death and buzzard death
stood on an Ozark hill,
surveying the hollers and treetops
beneath the cloak of something darker.
As heavy morning sky pressed
down their feathers, they agreed
on so little, except this:
They should separate.
And away they split to meet
the fathers in the cold fields,
the unlucky, young, and screeching,
and finally the stoically violent parade
of a small town’s widows.
